FUTA Staff Demand N8b Earned Allowances From FG

Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) of Federal
University of Technology Akure (FUTA) has urged the federal government
to expedite payment of its earned allowances.

In continuation of
their strike, the members, yesterday, wielded placards bearing
‘Government, reinstate staff school teachers now’, ‘Government, pay us
our earned allowances’, ‘FGN, pay our N8 billion earned allowances’,
‘SSANU says no to injustice over staff school’, ‘A law-abiding govt must
obey court judgement’, ‘Pay staff school teachers’ salary’, ‘NUC, FGN:
who is withholding our earned allowances’, among others.

Addressing
journalists after the union’s meeting in FUTA yesterday, the national
public relations officer (PRO), Mr. Abdulsobru Salawu, said that the
three-day nationwide strike was pertinent. Salawu lamented that FG
reneged on the promises it made to the association last year,
attributing it to the insensitivity of the political class.

He
added that there were over four Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) that
were not honoured. The PRO decried the blatant defiance to the judgement
of the National Industrial Court (NIC) in December 2016 ordering it to
re-absorb the staff. His words: “Mid last year, the federal government
assured us that it had released N8 billion to be disbursed to all
non-teaching staff unions in the university system. And as we speak,
till today, no such disbursement has been made.

“As at today, we
have over 2,000 staff that have been disengaged technically by the
federal government on the account of an obnoxious circular that was
released by the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission.”

He
revealed that “our re-negotiation with the Babalakin committee, we want
to say that we are disappointed and hereby express our disenchantment
with the pace of negotiation by the federal government’s team.

“We
have been inaugurated almost two years now and as we speak, no movement
has been made; we have had series of meetings, and none of them has
yielded any result; they refused to agree with it.”